“Then it’s a stalemate.” Fred stood up. “Well, Peggy?”
They looked at each other, and their eyes went through the performance again. When they got to the place in the script where it said, “It must be wonderful always,” Fred sat down.
But Wolfe, having no part in the script, horned in. “A stalemate,” he said dryly, “ends the game, I believe.”
Plainly it was up to me. If Wolfe openly committed himself to no dice nothing would budge him. I arose, got the pretty pink check from his desk, put it on mine, placed a paperweight on it, sat down, and grinned at him.
“Granted that you’re dead right,” I observed, “which is not what you call apodictical, someday we ought to make up a list of the clients that have sat here and lied to us. There was Mike Walsh, and Calida Frost, and that cafeteria guy, Pratt — oh, dozens. But their money was good, and I didn’t get so far behind with my notes that I couldn’t catch up. All that for nothing?”
“About those notes,” Fred Weppler said firmly. “I want to make something clear.”
Wolfe looked at him.
He looked back. “We came here,” he said, “to tell you in confidence about a problem and get you to investigate. Your accusing us of lying makes me wonder if we ought to go on, but if Mrs. Mion wants to I’m willing. But I want to make it plain that if you divulge what we’ve told you, if you tell the police or anyone else that we said there was no gun there when we went in, we’ll deny it in spite of your damn notes. We’ll deny it and stick to it!” He looked at his girl. “We’ve got to, Peggy! All right?”
“He wouldn’t tell the police,” Peggy declared, with fair conviction.
“Maybe not. But if he does, you’ll stick with me on the denial. Won’t you?”